Military Green Jobs - Testing The First Uav Reconnaissance On Liquid Hydrogen

By Author: Max Neugebauer
Total Articles: 24
Comment this article

Began testing a new high-altitude UAV Boeing Phantom Eye. Surprisingly, even in the defense industry is a place for green jobs. March 10, 2012 on the basis of the U.S. Air Force at Edwards, he made his first ground taxiing to take-off discharge of the original chassis. While taxiing speed does not seem excessive (only 55 km / h), drone, created in response to the "Afghan Post" claims the U.S. military is indeed a breakthrough in technology.
Generally, speaking of the UAV, we present the small size and unobtrusive device, explore and assault inflicting blows with small altitudes and at speeds less than that of IL-2. The small size is seen as a protection against detection, and no speed - as a guarantee of accuracy.
However, there is another approach to the future of drones - the American. As you may have guessed, in full compliance with U.S. technical traditions, they seem to come UAVs large. It is great! Phantom Eye has a wingspan of 76.25 meters, payload - 203 kg. The ceiling of this giant of a large intelligence will reach 20 km and a cruising speed - 278 km / h Weight of empty drone - 3390 kg, and this is also ...
... a record for a vehicle of this size, this has been achieved thanks to the widest use in the construction of carbon fiber. Continuous patrol - from 96 to, according to some estimates, 240 hours (obviously at a very low speed). It is so great that the drone is not the usual gear, but there is a special launcher system, which consists of four-wheel carts, overclocking the it up to 55 km / h, and eliminates the need to carry an excess burden of the high-power chassis. Landing is going to light the front wheel and the side rails, reminiscent helicopter. Weight, complexity and cost of conventional gear have long been a headache for aircraft designers around the world, and the solution, no doubt, quite successfully, at least for the system, taking off, and sitting down a lot of time in days.
Why is it needed? In Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force faced the fact that the usual low altitude UAVs suffer from two major drawbacks: they observed small area, and their on-board equipment should be easy (but high-quality monitoring devices have a decent size and weight). Not to mention the fact that MANPADS is still churning them. What really, even the Chinese counterfeit DSK, which managed to shoot more on Soviet planes and helicopters in the last war, may "fill up" the unit at a height of several hundred meters. In addition, air reconnaissance observed with a large area, capable of flying day and night, the U.S. Air Force will require a lower density of the network of military bases.
That's when army commanders wanted to be a scout, while covering large areas because of its altitude, and for the same reason immune to MANPADS.
Technically, the Phantom Eye is unusual in the use of only two automotive engines modified for hydrogen: the Ford 2.3-liter petrol engines with the former three-stage turbocharger. Weight of liquid hydrogen in two spherical tanks with polyurethane foam insulation with a diameter of 2.4 m each, is 836 kg. (Dron Boeing Condor, which operated in the 1980s, also used reciprocating engines, installing them in 1989 a record altitude for piston aircraft - 20 km, which promised and the Phantom Eye.)
Hydrogen - of course, the recent trend. According to the green jobs from Boeing, it makes the scout greener; because the only exhaust is water its engines. Of course, there is a reasonable question about the exhaust produced by the production of energy for the hydrolysis and subsequent delivery of hydrogen from the U.S. in Afghanistan (air-it way). But the magic trick has already been made: the word "ecology" definitely will affect the choice of the Air Force, because they spend more funding through Congress, where the environment is also praying. If you go back to harsh reality, the choice of liquid hydrogen due to the fact that its energy density twice that of any petroleum-based fuel. Consequently, the residence time in the air, the giant of the same weight of fuel doubles. With a detachable chassis is one of the key decisions that determine the high LTH Phantom Eye.